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Shirahama curses himself for sleeping in. Or rather, he curses his phone’s alarm for betraying him yet again. This isn’t the first time it’s proved to be faulty, and each time it happened, he’d sworn he’d buy a proper alarm clock. But somehow, he’d never gotten around to it.
And that’s why this Sunday morning, instead of the blaring, electronic sound of his phone getting him up, it was Tashiro that did the job. He told him he’d been waiting for him at the station for about half an hour prior, frustrated that Shirahama hadn’t been responding to calls or texts, so he’d taken it upon himself to go to his house and see what was up. Upon his arrival, he was disappointed at the sight of Shirahama, still passed out like a light on wrinkled sheets.
Like his life depended on it, Shirahama frantically apologized, got ready, and headed out, Tashiro in tow.
“Man, I really hope they still have it,” Shirahama says, now on the brink of sprinting down the shopping street, just near the train station they got off at.
“Hey, wait up!” Tashiro calls out, left behind and forced into an awkward half-jog in order to catch up.
Shirahama continues at the same pace, never in his life so desperate to get to Bic Camera. Although he’s sure that part of his anticipation is due to his lateness. If he had woken up when he’d planned to, there would've been a 100% chance of him getting a copy of this game. But now, he’d say it’s 50/50. It seems his obsession with gacha games has caused him to feel the same rush in this type of situation too.
“Jeez, it really is freezing today,” Tashiro complains, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, as if it’d be much help against the biting cold. It’s the middle of November, moving into winter, so the temperature has really been starting to drop lately.
“Should’ve worn thicker layers,” Shirahama tells him unhelpfully, unbothered in his own appropriately thick layers of clothing. His eyes stay fixed straight ahead, his friend’s suffering mere background noise for the task at hand.
“How was I supposed to know?”
“You don’t check the forecast before you leave?” Shirahama asks.
“…Not always,” Tashiro admits. He perks up just then, a bright idea popping into his head. “Hey, since you’re bundled up anyway, can I borrow your coat?”
“No,” Shirahama turns him down easily.
Tashiro frowns. “Come on, don’t you feel bad for your friend?”
“You’ll live.”
Tashiro pouts, then mumbles, “You would’ve just handed it over if it were Miyano.”
Shirahama’s step falters slightly, bewildered at the random statement. “Huh?” he says, finally throwing him a sideways glance. “Where’d that come from?”
“Oh, hey, we’re here,” Tashiro announces and he points ahead.
Shirahama turns, momentarily forgetting about their conversation as soon as he sees the storefront. The glowing red logo of Bic Camera stands out against the gray afternoon, their destination finally within reach after their frantic half-sprint through the shopping street. They walk in and the automatic doors open for them. The store’s nice, toasty heating system warms their bones as fluorescent bulbs light them from above.
A couple of shoppers turn to look at them as they both hurry over to the large video game section. Their eyes rake over the displays, searching each aisle for any sight of—
“Here it is!” Tashiro exclaims with glee.
Shirahama’s gaze zooms over to where he’s pointing, and lo and behold, there’s the game they came here for. There’s only one copy left on the shelf. “Damn, we got lucky,” he grins, buzzing with excitement.
For a highly anticipated game to still be in stock at this time of day, well, it might mean someone else was a bit too lazy to get out of bed in this weather. That, or people have been buying digital versions more. He likes to buy digital copies himself most of the time, since it’s more convenient, after all. But if it’s an installment of one of his favorite series such as this one, he prefers to collect the physical versions. It’s a nice feeling to see them all lined up on his shelf.
He snatches it in his grip, before anyone else can get the chance to swoop in and take it. He flips the case over, checking out and appreciating the back. “Come on, let’s go,” Shirahama urges his friend, already moving towards the register.
The glow from the TV paints Shirahama's living room as his character sprints across the map. He sits hunched forward on the couch, elbows resting on his knees in a posture that would cause his mother to scold him about his spine. Thankfully, she’s out with some friends all afternoon. Although that also means he and Tashiro don’t have any fruit to snack on as they occupy themselves with the game. His mother adores Tashiro, and always puts some fruit out for them when he’s hanging out here.
Shirahama had just played past the introduction and most of the tutorial sections, and pretty much had gotten the hang of the mechanics. For the most part, it’s pretty similar to the mechanics of the previous installment, so he’s quick on the uptake.
Tashiro, meanwhile, is content to just sit next to him and watch him play, interjecting often with his insights and jokes. It’s pretty much all he can do, since it’s a single player game. But this is a frequent arrangement for them. Tashiro never minds, and even enjoys watching. He’d even encouraged him more than once to start streaming his gameplay. Shirahama’s embarrassed to say he’s actually considering it.
But anyway, the game. The game’s been good so far.
But then he cracks open a loot crate. And with it, comes a ‘Stylish Winter Coat’, the first piece of clothing he’s acquired exploring. He pulls up his inventory to see what it looks like on his character. He equips it, a structured, beige coat. That reminds him…
His thoughts drift away, back to the conversation he and Tashiro hadn’t gotten the chance to finish. What was that all about?
“You’re going the wrong direction,” Tashiro tells him, referring to his character in the game. “The side quest guy said his wife was the other way.”
“Huh?” Shirahama mutters. “Oh…right, uh…where was it?”
“Go back where you came from,” Tashiro instructs, and Shirahama’s thumb subsequently pulls the left joystick down.
Shirahama’s mind races, his friend’s words back then bouncing around like an echo. Would he have lent his coat if it were Miyano?
The thought takes root, and before he could stop it, his imagination conjures up a scenario. A visual novel-style screen flashes before his eyes of Miyano, cheeks tinged pink from the chill, as they’re walking to the train station. The text boxes fill in with dialogue, accompanied with an electronic typing sound as each word materializes.
[‘It sure has been cold lately!’]
There’s two choices available for him:
- [‘You can borrow my coat, if you want.’]
- [‘Sorry, I need it.’]
Well, it’s just a game anyway. He picks the first one.
Then, visual novel Miyano responds.
[‘Are you sure?’]
There’s a brief flash as the image of digital Miyano changes. He’s smiling brightly, Shirahama’s beige coat draped over him. The fabric engulfs him, the sleeves going past his hands as it’s two sizes too big for him.
[‘Thanks!’]
“—ude, are you okay? Hey.”
Tashiro’s voice cuts through the lingering haze of his imagination, a hand waving in between his face and the TV. The visual novel world dissipates like mist as Shirahama blinks rapidly, and he’s now back down to Earth.
Where the hell did that come from? Jeez. He really has been playing too many of those types of games. A more action-based one, like what he’s got now, is a welcome palette cleanser. Now, he feels even more grateful he was able to get his hands on it.
And to answer his own question, there’s no way he would’ve let Miyano wear his coat. Miyano’s got a boyfriend. He couldn’t do that.
Tashiro speaks up again. “You’ve been walking into this wall for like, a full minute.”
Shirahama shifts in his seat. “Uh…sorry,” he mumbles intelligently.
“Is something up?” Tashiro asks, leaning over with genuine concern.
Shirahama’s thumb presses a button to pause the game. He turns to look at Tashiro. “What did you mean earlier,” he starts, “when you said I would’ve lent my coat if it were Miyano?”
The question hangs between them. For a moment, neither speak.
Tashiro breaks out into a small chuckle. “That’s what you were zoning out about?!”
“Sh-shut up!” he exclaims, with no real heat behind his words.
“It’s nothing serious,” Tashiro says in a casual tone. “I’ve noticed you’ve been kind of weird around him for a while. That’s all.”
“Weird how?”
“Hmm…” Tashiro tilts his head, considering. “Like, you’re nicer to him, I guess?”
“What? No, I’m not,” he quickly denies. All of his friends get the same treatment, the same level of niceness.
“Yeah, you are,” Tashiro doubles down on his accusation. “You gave him your last octopus sausage at lunch the other day.”
“Is that what this is about?” Shirahama asks. Is this guy really holding a grudge over food? “He said he was still hungry.”
“But you love those things,” Tashiro points out.
“I was full. I wasn’t gonna eat it.”
“I called dibs if you didn’t finish them, though.”
“He’s skin and bones,” Shirahama reasons out. It’s not like he pays attention to Miyano’s body or anything, but anyone knows that just by looking at him. He’s seen him when they change in P.E. He’s caught glimpses of Miyano's bare back as he pulled his shirt over his head. The sharp angles of his shoulder blades on his small frame. He could stand to eat more, surely. Between him and Tashiro, it was clear who his leftovers should go to. “He needed it more than you do.”
“Okay…there’s also the cultural festival,” Tashiro adds, not finished voicing out his observations. “He was the only one struggling with folding the lanterns, but you drew step-by-step blueprints anyway, just for him.”
“I didn’t want him to waste any more of our paper,” Shirahama explains. Plus, it was difficult to watch him fail over and over again, and Shirahama’s not some sort of sadist. Of course, he’ll do what he can to help. “It was just more efficient. It wasn’t hard anyway.”
“And there’s that time he fell during P.E—”
“Are you keeping a list or something?”
“—and he skinned his knee,” Tashiro ignores him and continues. “So you offered to take him to the nurse.”
Shirahama fails to see what the big deal is. “So?”
“It was just a little scrape. You didn’t have to walk him all the way there.”
“It was the nice thing to do,” Shirahama argues. Really, it’s basic human decency. What’s wrong with that? Tashiro’s looking too deep into everything.
“But he told you he could handle it,” Tashiro recounts. "Is it because you think he’s, like...fragile or something?"
Shirahama opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it. Fragile? No, absolutely not. Miyano’s a guy, after all, and despite his size, he’s never thought him to be fragile. In a similar vein, a bunch of the guys in class always say Miyano sort of looks like a girl, but he’s never shared the same opinion. He’s always assumed everyone else must simply not have seen a girl in a while, perhaps a symptom of going to an all-boys school.
Tashiro misreads the silence for confirmation. “Yeah, I kinda get it. Like you said, he’s pretty skinny, and he’s on the shorter side, so you wanna look out for him.”
“Th-that’s not—” Shirahama sputters, then sighs. “No, I don’t think he’s fragile.”
“Sometimes, you get all nervous around him too,” Tashiro goes on. Shirahama swears he’s giving him whiplash from this conversation. “What’s up with that?”
“A-ah…well…” Shirahama stutters, his voice going quiet. That’s the end of his hit streak.
A lightbulb seems to go off in Tashiro’s head. “Do you owe him money or something?”
“No, idiot,” Shirahama shoots down. “It’s just…I don’t know. He has a boyfriend, so…”
“Sasaki-senpai?” Tashiro supplies.
Shirahama winces at the sound of the name. It’s a name he can’t get himself to say. He doesn’t know the guy like Tashiro or Kuresawa do, so it feels wrong to go around casually referring to him like he knows him like that. Shirahama doesn’t know if Miyano’s boyfriend even knows his name. Does Miyano ever talk about him?
“Oh, yeah. You act even weirder when Sasaki-senpai’s around,” Tashiro brings up, and his expression switches to an exasperated one. “It’s really embarrassing.”
Shirahama can feel heat rush to his face, but he pushes through it. “I-I just don’t want anyone—especially him—to get the wrong idea about me and Miyano, if I…you know…”
Now that he’s trying to say it out loud, he feels a little silly. Shirahama stares at the paused game screen, where his character remains face-first in a concrete wall. Much like how this conversation feels for him.
Tashiro gives him a look that tells him he has no idea what he's talking about. “Huh? The wrong idea about what?”
“Like…you know,” he mutters. “If I do stuff like, share an umbrella with him, or…help him carry stuff…things like that.”
“That’s totally normal, though,” Tashiro points out. “I’m sure Sasaki-senpai’s fine with it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cause…why wouldn’t he be?”
“That kind of stuff can be taken the wrong way, you know,” Shirahama informs him, as if he’s a human teaching an alien about socializing. “I’m pretty sure he was glaring daggers at me back during the cultural festival, when he heard I helped Miyano out with those boxes cause he wasn’t feeling well.”
“Ehh? Is Sasaki-senpai that kind of guy?” Tashiro asks in disbelief. “You’re probably just overthinking it.”
“No way,” Shirahama denies. He's sure Miyano's boyfriend is a great guy, but in that moment, he feared for his life. “The way he was looking at me was scary.”
“That’s just his face. It's kinda scary if you don't know him,” Tashiro dismisses with a wave. “But...if you’re so scared of him, why do you keep doing all these nice things for Miyano anyway?”
Shirahama blushes at the direct question. “Well, he’s my friend, so…”
“You don’t get all nervous with Kuresawa.”
“Th-that’s different! Kuresawa’s into girls,” Shirahama’s brain feels like a flopping fish. “And Miyano is…I mean, I guess he’s into guys, so—”
Realization dawns on Tashiro’s face. “Ohhhh! You were worried about Sasaki-senpai being jealous of you?”
“Wh-what did you think we were talking about this whole time?!”
“He doesn’t have anything to be jealous of,” Tashiro states definitively. “Miyano’s totally crazy about him.”
“Yeah, obviously,” Shirahama agrees. To a sickening amount. God, that guy is only slightly more tolerable than Kuresawa, even if he doesn’t actually gush about his boyfriend constantly.
“Plus, he’s way cooler than you.”
“H-hey!” Shirahama bristles, more out of principle than actual offense.
“And it’s not like you like Miyano anyway,” Tashiro barrels on.
“Of course not.” The idea is ridiculous. He likes girls, he always has. Sure, Miyano’s nice and all, but that doesn’t mean...
“...Do you?”
"What? No!" Shirahama's response comes too loud, more from surprise than defensiveness. "Why would you even ask that?"
“Woah, relax, I was just making sure,” Tashiro holds up his hands. “It’d explain a whole lot.”
“What? Like you know the first thing about liking someone,” Shirahama says, dripping with sarcasm.
“I’m not completely clueless!” Tashiro argues weakly, straightening up from his slouch. But Shirahama isn’t aware if he’s ever even had a crush on anyone before. He’s never told him about any, nor has Shirahama noticed anything in middle school. He barely even talked to girls at all back then. Tashiro tacks on, “You think you’re the expert?”
Shirahama rolls his eyes. “Uh, yes!” he answers, exasperated. What the hell? Tashiro knows about pretty much all of his former crushes. “That’s the one part of romance I do have experience with! Lots of it!”
A slow, mischievous grin spreads across Tashiro’s face. “I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.” He bursts into chuckles.
“Ugh,” Shirahama shoves him on the shoulder. “Asshole.”
The last of Tashiro’s laughter subsides and he asks, “So, what’s it like to have a crush on someone anyway?”
“Well…” Shirahama hesitates, heat creeping up his face. It’s embarrassing to describe this kind of thing, even if it is to someone he’s known for years.
If he had to put it in words…what is it like to have a crush? He’s gone so long without one, this being his third year in an all-boys school and everything. Whatever part of the brain it is that develops crushes may have dried up and fallen out of his ear at this point. It’s been a while, but he’s pretty sure he still remembers how it works. “You…think about them all the time. You notice little things about them.”
As he speaks, his mind automatically reaches back to middle school, to a girl in his class who always wore red ribbons in her hair. How he'd notice when she wasn't in school, and the way she pushed her glasses up when she concentrated. How his chest would tighten when she smiled at him. Oh, right, that’s what it was like.
“And, uh, you really like being around them,” he continues awkwardly, fidgeting with the buttons of his controller. He can’t look Tashiro in the eye when something this embarrassing is the subject of discussion. “You do stuff…to make them happy.” His fingers still. He knows they’d just been talking about him doing stuff for Miyano, but that’s not the same thing.
"Um…they make you feel nervous." His voice sounds strange to his own ears. Yes, he remembers that his pulse would race when his last crush would sit next to him. However, it almost feels like he's talking about someone else. The memory feels distant, faded.
…But what doesn’t feel distant is the way his breath catches when Miyano leans in to look at the game on his phone. Close enough that he could count each of his long lashes. The static whenever their arms would brush together as they shared an umbrella. The warm, blooming feeling in his chest when Miyano would proudly credit him for all the work he did for the festival. His smile whenever he thanked him for his help.
Shirahama’s speech trails off as the parallels start making him uncomfortable. The feelings from years ago that he thought were tough to remember, suddenly become horrifyingly vivid. When he tries to find another explanation, it feels like he’s mashing two wrong pieces of a puzzle together. And the cardboard is bending and creasing. He’s got no choice but to pick another piece, to find another answer, the right answer.
A cold sweat breaks out on his palms. No. That can’t be it. He'd never—
“Hey, uh…” Tashiro looks at him with an uncharacteristically knowing look. No longer teasing, just...aware. His voice interrupts his train of thought. A good thing, Shirahama thinks, because that train was about to crash. “...Are you sure you don’t like Miyano?”
Ah. Maybe it’s crashing anyway.
It lands differently this time, compared to the other times Tashiro’s asked. There's a softness in his tone, none of his usual playfulness. This time, the question presses painfully against Shirahama's ribs.
“I—I’m sure,” he answers.
But he’s not sure. He’s not sure about anything.
Tashiro pulls back, and doesn’t press him any longer. Instead, he leans back against the couch, deliberately casual as he studies the paused game screen. "Well...if you really don't…" he says slowly, choosing each word carefully, "...Then there should be nothing to worry about, right?"
It’s a line thrown out to sea. A way out of this conversation.
Shirahama grabs onto it for dear life. "Right," he exhales. "Exactly."
“No need to stress,” Tashiro assures. He nudges Shirahama's knee with his own, grounding him. "Now unpause the game already. Let’s go into that building.”
“...Yeah.”
Long after Tashiro leaves, in the dead of night, Shirahama lays in bed.
He’s done everything he could think of to get…that…out of his head. He's exhausted every possible distraction. Multiple rounds of a game he swore he’d never pick up again because it was too addicting. Like a billion pushups, which he knows he’ll regret in basketball practice the next day. He’d even reorganized his anime figures by eye color, then hair color, then alphabetically. Yet here he is, staring at the ceiling, still carrying a crushing weight on his chest.
In the darkness, his room feels larger somehow, and emptier than it really is. He’s only got the faint glow of his computer’s RGB lights against the wall keeping him company. He watches as the colors cycle through the spectrum. Red, orange, yellow—ah…rainbows…don’t they also use those as a symbol for…
A strangled noise escapes his throat, and he turns over to press his face into his pillow. Even his damn gaming setup has it out for him.
“Dammit…” he mumbles into the fabric.
Why is he thinking so hard about this anyway? Does it matter?
Even if Shirahama does—and he’s not saying he does—hypothetically…possibly…harbor certain…unfortunate feelings for Miyano, it’s not like there’s anything that could come of it. Miyano’s got a boyfriend. He knows this very well. He’s seen them on a date together, borderline canoodling in public. He helped plan that date, even. God. He did do that, didn’t he? That makes this all the more messed up.
His phone buzzes next to his head, the screen flashing. If that’s a LINE notification at this time of night, it could only be…
He flips onto his back once again, and snatches his phone so fast he nearly elbows himself in the face.
Wait.
What’s there to be so excited about? It’s just a LINE message. That might be from Miyano.
And so what if it’s from Miyano?
Without yet checking the notification, he sets his phone back down. He counts to three, and tries again, reaching for his phone at what he hopes is a normal person speed. Just like he would any other time. There’s no reason to get all…weird about it.
He looks at the screen, and just as he suspected, it’s from Miyano. He’d sent a message to their group chat that included himself, Tashiro and Kuresawa.
‘Do any of you have my pen? I know I let one of you borrow it last Friday, but I can’t remember who. Was it Tashiro?’
Just as he finishes reading it, another text pops up.
‘Whoever has it, please bring it to school tomorrow. Need it back.’
Shirahama stares. Technically, it’s already tomorrow, but he knows what he means. And he happens to remember that it was Tashiro who borrowed it. Shirahama was across the room when Miyano had lent it to him, getting help with his homework from a classmate. But he’d heard Miyano’s voice and instinctively looked up.
Not that he always paid attention when Miyano spoke. It’s…not like that. Really. It’s just that he knew Tashiro was a black hole of pens, having let him borrow his own a dozen times and never getting them back. He simply wanted to take note of it, to make sure Miyano got his pen back.
His thumbs position to text back an answer, but he finds himself stuck in place.
How…does he normally text Miyano?
‘Tashiro has it’, he tries to type out, but is that too cold? Will he suspect something’s up? Backspace.
‘The blue pen? Pretty sure Tashiro has it.’ Now why did he have to specify which pen? As if he's been keeping track. Backspace.
He scraps three more half-written responses before settling on ‘Pretty sure Tashiro took it’. Then, after a painful thirty-second deliberation, adds a period. He’s about to lock in on it, but his thumb freezes over the send button.
Would Miyano find it weird that he remembers who borrowed his pen? Especially since it was 1, 2…technically 3 days ago now? Should he even send a message at all? He’d hate to leave him hanging though.
He screws his eyes shut, and just hits send. Whatever. What’s the worst that could happen?
He shouldn’t have asked himself. His traitorous brain conjures up a visual novel-style image of his phone opened to LINE—or rather, a messaging app with a layout slightly different from LINE, to protect whatever fictional company that makes this imaginary visual novel from getting sued.
[‘Pretty sure Tashiro took it.’]
A few response messages quickly appear.
[‘Ehhh?? Why do you know that?’]
[‘Do you keep track of who borrows my stuff?’]
[‘Is it because you like me?’]
Visual novel Shirahama panics. His own dialogue box offers three choices:
- [‘Yes, I’ve always liked you.’]
- [‘...Maybe a little.’]
- [‘So what if I do?’]
They’re all disastrous, and his imaginary self trembles. Before he can select, the game auto-chooses the worst possible one and his soul leaps out of his digital body.
[‘So that’s how you feel…I should tell Sasaki-senpai.’]
Shirahama’s life is over. That guy…would definitely kill him. He would kill him.
His lamenting over the events in his made-up world is interrupted by the sound of his phone buzzing in real life. He doesn’t know what’s worse, his visual novel daydreams, or the reality he has to live with. With one eye open, he checks his phone.
‘Thanks! Hey Tashiro, don’t forget to bring it tomorrow.’
Oh. That…wasn’t bad at all. That’s actually incredibly normal.
He feels like an idiot for getting so worked up about this. Miyano’s casual response is like a cold bucket of water dumped on his overheated imagination. Miyano’s his friend. They talk like regular friends do, and he’s always been particularly easy to talk to. There’s no need to overthink stupid things like whether he should add a period in his LINE message or not.
To prove it to himself, he tries to keep the conversation going.
‘You out of pens? LOL’
See? That was easy, wasn’t it? He exhales, and he feels a bit lighter. Maybe he could actually go to sleep after this.
Miyano takes a minute to respond.
‘No, it’s Sasaki-senpai’s. He lent it to me, so I want to return it to him.’
Shirahama can picture it perfectly, the face Miyano’s making. It’s a face he often makes when he mentions his boyfriend. His cheeks flush slightly, his already soft features soften even more. But his eyes...they're the most telling part. They sparkle brilliantly. You can tell that the person he’s talking about is really special to him. He really is...cute, when he's happy.
Shirahama’s grip tightens around his phone.
It’s just a pen. But Miyano remembers whose it is, and he wants to return it properly. Because it belongs to the person he loves.
Shirahama wouldn’t usually pay attention to who borrowed who’s stuff. Not if it were anyone else but Miyano. Because Miyano is the person he…
He might know how it ends, but he isn’t ready to finish that sentence. It can’t be real if he doesn’t say it to himself.
Shirahama types out a reply with numb fingers. 'Ah. Got it.'
Then, because he's a masochist: 'He'll be happy to get it back.'
He powers off his phone and the screen goes black with a finality. It feels like pulling the pin off a grenade and setting it next to himself. He shuts his eyes, but he can still see the hues of his RGB lights shifting behind his closed eyelids. There's nowhere to hide.
Blue. Purple. Red. Then, a taunting orange.
It’s the color of Miyano’s boyfriend’s hair.
It’s the color of the sunrise hours later, when he fails to get any sleep that night.
He’s got to get ready for school, as exhausted as he may be. His sore arms ache when he gets down from his loft bed with difficulty. It won’t be his first time going to class sleepless, but somehow, today feels like it’ll be the worst.
If he keeps this up, he won’t need to buy that new alarm clock after all.